Metamorphosis
by Sasha Erin Alexain
Summary: AU. Post Halo 3. Life is continuing after the Human-Covenant war, and the UNSC finds itself in the middle of a new war they must help fight. Of course; Cortana won't be far behind, and hell if she's leaving them or John to fight alone... Contains content from Halo 1, 2, 3, ODST, 4, and Reach.


**IT BEGINS.**

**Well, a note before we begin:**

**This will be taking place after Halo 3, as Halo 4 does some nasty things to Cortana; that wouldn't make a very good story, eh? ****But this will include content from Halo 4 as well as all previous Halo games. As always: Halo 2 Brutes, Hunters, Elites, Scarabs, etc. Because Halo 2 had the best enemy. **

**This is the "proper" version of what was originally_ Cortana's New Life._**

******After this chapter, there will only be author notes at the bottom of the page throughout the story, for more of a seamless read.**

**Let's go. And if you like it, tell me your opinions and leave reviews, please! Also; a warm welcome to all my previous followers and readers! Hope y'all enjoy the new and revised story! - Now with 30% extra plot! **

* * *

Gunfire, explosions, and faint screams in the distance.

A typical day indeed, thought Spartan-058 as she trudged up the wet hill with her compact sniper rifle in eager hands. Spartan-029 was with her, in tow with his own sniper rifle, her ally said naught when they reached the top of the vast dirt mound and gazed out upon the barren, rainy wasteland before them, and the looming super-city far away being ravaged by flashes of green and the streaking small dots of encapsulating fire that followed them. The two were on their way to meet up with Spartan's 087 and 104. Their objective was to take a Covenant controlled zone that was acting as a deployment area for anti-aircraft and other such heavy artillery, and they were bombarding that city they were going toward, called Suulios, which as of the present moment, was evacuating its civilians. Trust the Covenant to kick the wounded when they were down. Bastards didn't know what mercy was.

Zooming in and scanning the desolate landscape's ruins before the city, she spotted several burning and burnt out husks of former Warthogs and cars through the rain, and the blackened bodies around them. Clearly the evacuation was failing, and the city would fall. That was if they didn't get to their destination. Looking out to the left of the city, she saw the one of the causes of the cities destruction: Dozens of Wraiths. She growled in resolute anger, a flash of lightning almost seemingly following her mood.

"Josh, double time it!" Linda barked, and slung her rifle onto her back, breaking into a sprint. Josh didn't need telling again, he was hot on her heels as she hurdled for the enemy. The heavy power armoured boots smashed into slugged ground while her eyes were ablaze with hate for her foes, and she subconsciously pulled her pistol from its holster; it was reflex. Thanks to the Spartan's armour, and their upgraded 'sprint' mod, they crossed the distance in mere minutes, and already the plasma bolts were streaking past their heads from surrounding infantry. Only when they were a few hundred metres from the Covenant did they start opening fire.

Of course, Grunts and Jackals fell first, with Jackals running for it hoping their shields would be their saviour, but the Spartan's pinpointed bullets flew past the cut-out sections of the shield, passing bloodily through the Jackals flimsy bodies with great ease. They fell in the mud only to be replaced by several more scores of lower ranks. But they too, were falling to a maelstrom of bullets. Her magazine clicked empty and she ejected it into the dirt, bringing and slamming another into her gun in the blink of an eye. She shot down two Grunts with a single bullet, the blood spraying from the exit wounds, a nice way to conserve her ammo, but all but emptied it into a Brutes now exploding face when his resistance went down from Josh's crossfire.

Well, they were getting there now, with a few Wraiths having broken off of the main bulk of barraging bastards to blow them up instead. Seven Brutes filed between the Wraiths and were charging with red plasma rifles or Brute shots in gnarled hand.

Linda careened to the left as a shot grenade flew in her direction, detonating harmlessly as it buried itself in the earth. She jumped, in a single deft move, holstering her pistol and unleashing her rifle free from it's place on her back, spitting tungsten rounds into skulls, her heavy armoured boot impacting into another Brute skull as she landed hatefully into the beast. It gave a roar of agony in the split second it took for her foot to crack against its cranium and turn it into red pulp in the sodden muck. That made three of seven. She grunted more in annoyance than pain when some plasma bolts slammed into her shields. Linda jumped onto a Wraith intending to ram her, and she mercilessly drove her gauntlet into the tanks own shielded armour. But for all its endurance, the tough metal gave way and broke inward.

Sparks and shards flew alike as the Brute driving the Wraith growled in both surprise and hate. She shut him up with a well placed plasma grenade, leaping from the Covenant vehicle with great dexterity onto another Brutes back, breaking its spine with her armours sheer weight of well over 450 kilo's. It gurgled, and breathed bloody breaths into the soil until it's demise while she fired several SRS rounds into another Brute who just wouldn't go down. The Wraith behind her went up in a plume of plasma, it's Brute occupants crying out as they roasted alive.

Josh noted Linda had taken down four of the Brutes as he jumped off a Wraith, destroyed by his hand, onto another. Leaping around to its back, he punched a hole in a single hit and shoved his arm into the glowing blue, leaving a little present as he pulled free. He fired a single shot of his rifle into a Brute that Linda wasn't succeeding in killing quickly, and it finally decided to give up and keel over with his shot.

Three Wraiths and five Brutes in less than ten minutes. One more Wraith, two more Brutes.

Josh felt winded as a hairy fist balled into his chest and knocked him flat into the wet land. He got halfway into getting up before a remaining Brute was reigning in blows left, right, and centre. He roared and growled in his language at Josh before Linda's knife found its way into the fuckers eye. It screamed out and fell back onto her where she continued stabbing its vulnerable new hole until it died and went still, blood dripping from the socket. They had no time to react before a red hot blast of plasma from a Wraith landed between them. The hit impacted Josh's legs and all but obliterated the now dead Brute. Linda and himself flew apart several metres before landing roughly. Josh's shields flashed warnings at him while morphine was automatically injected into his legs. He got up as quickly as his will could allow, ignoring the burning in his lower body, and raced toward the final Wraith.

This one had a turret attached and present Brute manning it. It was already spewing out plasma death at the Spartan, and it burned into his armour as his shields went down to nothing, he soared through the air, pulling back his arm, and socked the Brute with full force as he landed on the tank. He heard an audible snap of the creatures jaw and it gave a pained whimper. He didn't relent, pulverising it's brain with countless strikes. He sharply pulled another grenade free and dropped it down behind the corpse, flying from the Wraith as it went up into a blue haze of fire.

In an instant he ran for Linda, she lay in the ground not far from where the Wraith blast had hit. Bloody glowing Brute viscera covered her lower body and her upper torso was splattered with plasma residue. She was still when he reached her and propped her up. He began to scan her vitals when he went off balance by a punch from her. Which came as a surprise.

"I'm not dead, idiot." She grunted, giving a Spartan Smile over her visor. "Now where's that last Brute?"

"Over there." Josh pointed out.

She turned her head to see it running away back to the main convoy, who themselves had been too busy focusing on the task at hand to attack the two Spartans. She pulled her rifle up to eye level and took aim, instantly pulling the trigger. The bullet passed cleanly through its head in a spray of gore and it went down after running a few extra steps.

Linda sighed and laughed gently. A bit of her anger spent. She looked to Josh again. "Right. Lets go kill us that convoy."

* * *

The war had been over for a few months now. After the detonation of the Halo ring , the Ark, and Truth's death, most of the Covenant had scattered and retreated back to the void of space. The Elites had kept their alliance with the human race and provided able fighters to bulk the UNSC's ground forces against the remaining pockets of Covenant resistance, and so far, things were looking up as the Covenant on Earth were thinning out.

This was all well and good, though Catherine Halsey as she moved around her new lab.

However, there was always the loss.

So many millions dead. And they couldn't come back. It upset Halsey to know her children were still in danger, fighting the remnants. She had cried too much already. For her Spartans, for the countless dead, for her own self-pity, and she could cry no more. She simply got on with things. After her court martial ending in her being found 'not guilty', she had simply moved on with life.

She was very thankful for many Spartans being present that day, as well as a few supporters of what she had needed to do. Lord Hood had been one of those men supporting her, albeit hesitantly with her crimes. But he believed it had needed to be done. It had ultimately turned the court decision after several speeches from her Spartans and Hood. The Spartans, all viewed her as a mother, call it brainwashing if you will. They had all grown with their minds their own outside of training. They had made the decision to call her a mother themselves. She had just gladly accepted the title. And she would always would stand by them.

She sighed and fell into a leather armchair, asking her assistant for a black coffee, who scampered off to fulfill the request. Even though she was a war criminal in the eyes of many, she still got paid as a scientist of the UNSC and ONI. She was rich now. She bought a nice home at the top a skyscraper in a large supercity, with top notch facilities. ONI had installed the best lab and equipment they could for their top scientist. She didn't pretend to not enjoy life now, but she still wasn't content. Money was all nice and dandy, but she still worked for ONI and the UNSC, and she still needed to procure results and new innovations as much as possible.

Her mind wandered for a bit while she waited for her hot beverage, it wandered until she started to think about her Spartans again.

_Him_ in particular. He also had_ her_ too.

John had done more than any one Spartan, alongside Cortana. His luck had kept him going until his end. And everyone was exceedingly thankful for it. His own Spartan brethren viewed him as a sort of demi-god, which made Halsey smile whenever they brought it up. He was so close as well to coming home to them all, not that he knew they were still alive. She and the remaining Spartans had found a way off the Dyson Sphere just after what she'd been informed was John going off to destroy another Halo. She'd been present at the ONI office taking a view of the Ark, and John leaving on a Pelican with the Arbiter to go complete his mission. Each time they attempted to send drones in to survey the ring, they were shot down by sentinels.

And then the ring detonated and shook apart, destroying itself, and the Ark, and anything present. The Forward unto Dawn had made it through the Ark's portal before it collapsed, but only its front half. Only the half containing the Arbiter.

John, and Cortana, had both been listed as MIA on that day. The news had praised them as heroes, the ceremonies had been done. At the end of the final ceremony by Lord Hood, many dozens of important marines and officers had been listed. Not John though. She herself had gone up to it, and carved in his unique number, pinning the medal of Master Chief Petty Officer underneath it. Lord Hood had looked on and let her.

It had been the day she'd cried in over several years.

Halsey shifted from her thoughts and glanced to her assistant, the pale Japanese girl handing her the coffee she'd requested, she took it with a small smile.

Mako was a small, friendly girl with an even smaller frame, high cheekbones, short black hair with purple highlights, and almond hazel eyes. She always got the job done perfectly, much to Halsey's appreciation. She'd been assigned by ONI to help in Halsey's work since her arrival back on Earth. To which, she figured she should get on with her work.

* * *

Boredom?

No.

Annoyance?

That was closer.

Well, whatever it was, it was grating on Cortana. Ever since their descent in the back end of The Forward unto Dawn, she'd been sending out signals continuously for days at a time. At one point she was certain she'd picked up the signal of a cargo vessel, only to turn out it was scrap and wires from a ship long dead. Now, a few months on, she still ran the same processes she'd run on the Pillar of Autumn.

She'd closed off ports, doors, and sections, made sure everything was airtight. The oxygen was recycled and vented back into the systems, and the gravity was currently disengaged to save power, a few random crates and bits of debris floating about her.

It was the usual drill. Except that there were no marines to go about their duties. No commands being barked over the intercom. Nothing aboard this dead husk of a ship. It was depressing, for lack of a better word. There was nothing to do except wait. She looked to the armoured sleeping giant in the cryogenic stasis pod, and smiled. He was her only company and hope. If not for him, she probably of put herself in a shut-down state.

"Miss you, John." She whispered to his form. She never got an answer, but she liked to pretend he spoke back. Call her crazy.

And then it happened.

There was a flash.

And signals flashed in turn, all around her! There were alerts as the ship was shook slightly, and something was happening outside the ship, which meant slip-space must of been opening! Her scans detected new frequencies after all, it must of been.

"Hello? Hello?! This is Cortana! UNSC Artificial Intelligence Serial Number: CTN 0452-9!" She said all within a second, her code was pulsing and colours flew through her, she went all shades of blue and purple from her excitement. "Does anyone read?!"

...There was...

"Affirmative! We read you Cortana. Time to come on home." The voice sounded as pleased as could be.

If Cortana could cry of joy, she would do. She activated the systems to shut off the cryogenic pod so it could thaw. This was it, they could go home. The ship suddenly flared to life as she powered up all systems to maximum. With the way she felt she could power the husk for years to come by will alone. Lights blazed brightly, some bursting, computers fizzed to life with warnings, and alert messages sounded out spewing evacuation messages. Other than that, the pressurised oxygen in the other parts of the ship hissed out into space as she released the doors and ports. She released the locks on all other doors so help could get to them. No doubt they already had a bead on their location. Her signal and his only life-sign. The ship was wild with activity, almost chaotic. And Cortana loved every second of it.

"Time to wake up." She whispered excitedly to him. "Wake up, John."

* * *

**A/N: Okay, so, I am re-doing things like I said at the top. The old story will still be up as a draft version, let people see how I developed and where I went wrong so they won't make the same mistakes. This will hold a different plot, as in my mind it makes much more sense. With the last version, I felt that it was just dragging on, even though it had a basic plot. With this re-hash, however; I plan to hold longer chapters, and make regular updates. My writers block always came because I hadn't planned out far enough, or felt the want to write with my depression. I hope to have less inconsistencies and plot holes as when I first started out; my understanding of the Halo universe was quite minimal.**

**On top of that; I actually have a degree of grammar and punctuation now, whereas back then in the beginning, I didn't. As well as a billion other problems, and missing chapters. It was a mess.**

**So, I will see how things pan out from here, and go from that and the reception. I will also happily accept criticism if anyone spots an inconsistency as I won't be able to spot them all myself. And again, a welcome to all old, and new, readers!**


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